Items related to Turning Back the Sun
Synopsis
When two bodies wash up on the river bank in a frontier town in Australia and the aborigines are blamed for the murder, racial hatred erupts, causing resentment among the aborigines and fear among the whites
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About the Author
Colin Thubron was born in 1939, and worked in publishing before travelling in North Africa, the Middle East, Russia and China.
From Kirkus Reviews
Outcasts from paradise haunted by death, disease, and drought have a moment of reprieve in this finely crafted--if ultimately hollow--fable by 1991 Booker Prize nominee Thubron (Falling, 1991, etc.). Set in a mythical authoritarian subtropical country between the two World Wars, this is ostensibly the story of a ``purpose town''--a place where ``nobody arrived for pleasure.'' Like protagonist Rayner, who's been sent from the capital to be one of town's two doctors, the citizens come to work, to pioneer, but not to leave--that's forbidden, unless special permission is given. The town itself, where ``nothing is older than a century,'' is surrounded by parched lands where bands of mysterious natives still practice their traditional customs. The despair of this ``conflation of exiles'' is further exacerbated when murdered bodies appear in the town and on the outskirts; a strange disfiguring rash spreads; and a long-endured drought makes the natives bellicose. Rayner yearns for the capital--``the shimmering city on the coast''--and dreams of old friends and loves he knew there. A love affair with dancer Zoe is not enough to cure his obsession; but on a visit to the capital, Rayner finds that paradise is not quite as he remembered. He returns to the town, feeling ``an intangible burden to be lifting''; and on patrol with the army, he witnesses a poignant ceremony in which the natives, hoping to climb back to heaven on their special tree that had stopped growing, try to prevent the sun setting so that everything ``will be all right again.'' The army does not fire on the natives, as they had intended; the rains come; and Rayner realizes that there is still Zoe. Hell is all there is, perhaps, but there are compensations. Atmosphere, mood, and place are all marvelously evoked, but the underlying theme is too spelled out, and not particularly new. Clever, beautiful, but disappointing. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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- PublisherPENGUIN BOOKS LTD
- Publication date1992
- ISBN 10 0140171827
- ISBN 13 9780140171822
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages208
- Rating
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Turning Back the Sun
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Turning Back the Sun
Published by
Penguin Books Ltd, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England, 1992
ISBN 10: 0140171827
ISBN 13: 9780140171822
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Paperback
Seller: Darkwood Online T/A BooksinBulgaria, Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria
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Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Reprint; First Printing. Minor shelf wear, small crack to spine. ; Nice tight flat copy, no names or marks inside, appears unread. Cover artwork by Stephen Martin. ; 208 pages; Novel set in a mundane town on the edge of a wilderness, but tensions begin to mount when the water dries up. Seller Inventory # 25171
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Turning Back the Sun
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Soft cover. Condition: Very Good. Penguin Books Ltd, 1992. Paperback First thus some shelf rubbing to covers otherwise in VERY GOOD CLEAN TIGHT READING ORDER. Full refund if not satisfied. 24 hour despatch. If not pictured in this listing, a scan of the actual book is available on request. Seller Inventory # nf4675
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Turning Back the Sun
Seller: Book Express (NZ), Wellington, New Zealand
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Paperback. Condition: Good. 203 pages. Cover worn Far away from the city of his birth, in a frontier town on the edge of tribal wilderness, a doctor tries to resolve the seemingly irreconcilable demands of his public career and his personal feelings. He believes his exile her to be temporary, and youthful memories of the distant city torment him with . Seller Inventory # 1435x
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Turning Back the Sun
Published by
Penguin, Harmondsworth. Middlesex., 1992
ISBN 10: 0140171827
ISBN 13: 9780140171822
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Soft cover
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Soft cover. Condition: Very Good. 1st Penguin Edition. Paperback. 'The action takes place in an unnamed, invented town on the edge of the wilderness. The town is ordinary, prositively dull. But there is no water and the tension mounts.' (Daily Telegraph). 204 pp. ( We carry a wide selection of titles in The Arts, Theology, History, Politics, Social and Physical Sciences. academic and scholarly books and Modern First Editions etc.). Seller Inventory # 065411
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